According to Rignot, melting of antarctic ice is occurring due to upwhelling of warm water along certain areas of the continent. However, ICECAP also includes the other information that Rignot omits. The fact that the ice coverage of anarctica is at a all time high, and is growing.

On another point ... water bound ice does not contribute to sea level, it is only the ice on land. According to the Global Mail, Rignot reports that the melting ice he is talking about is not continental as your post would insinuate, but is due movement of sea ice into warmer areas.

Of course, Rignot, beging a staunch advocate of the Alarmist, "speculates" that this is all due to global warming. However, not one shred of evidence points to such a speculation. Even Rignot's work puts the onus more on ocean water and not on atmospheric CO2.

But keep singing the song eadler ... like I said, 2010 will be here soon, and we'll see.

According to Rignot, melting of antarctic ice is occurring due to upwhelling of warm water along certain areas of the continent. However, ICECAP also includes the other information that Rignot omits. The fact that the ice coverage of anarctica is at a all time high, and is growing.

On another point ... water bound ice does not contribute to sea level, it is only the ice on land. According to the Global Mail, Rignot reports that the melting ice he is talking about is not continental as your post would insinuate, but is due movement of sea ice into warmer areas.

Of course, Rignot, beging a staunch advocate of the Alarmist, "speculates" that this is all due to global warming. However, not one shred of evidence points to such a speculation. Even Rignot's work puts the onus more on ocean water and not on atmospheric CO2.

But keep singing the song eadler ... like I said, 2010 will be here soon, and we'll see.[/QUOTE]

Once again your reluctance to believe that GW is a problem is causing you to misread information.
The increase in sea ice your chart shows is not proof that the land based glaciers on Antarctica are not decreasing in volume. In fact if the glaciers were flowing into the sea it would result in an increase in sea ice.

Rignot is clearly talking about land based ice moving into the ocean as a result of more rapid flow over the land. The acceleration comes about because of the erosion of the tongue of the land based ice that juts into the sea, as a result of warm water.

"Rignot said the tonnage of yearly ice loss in Antarctica is approaching that of Greenland, where ice sheets are known to be melting rapidly in some parts and where ancient glaciers have been in retreat. He said the change in Antarctica could become considerably more dramatic because the continent's western shelf, an expanse of ice and snow roughly the size of Texas, is largely below sea level and has broad and flat expanses of ice that could move quickly. Much of Greenland's ice flows through relatively narrow valleys in mountainous terrain, which slows its motion.

The new finding comes days after the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the group's next report should look at the "frightening" possibility that ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could melt rapidly at the same time.

"Both Greenland and the West Antarctic ice sheet are huge bodies of ice and snow, which are sitting on land," said Rajendra Pachauri, chief of the IPCC, the United Nations' scientific advisory group. "If, through a process of melting, they collapse and are submerged in the sea, then we really are talking about sea-level rises of several meters." (A meter is about a yard.) Last year, the IPCC tentatively estimated that sea levels would rise by eight inches to two feet by the end of the century, assuming no melting in West Antarctica. .."

[QUOTE=Bodean;217401]Well eadler ... there is no "consensus" amoung glacier scientist that what you say is true.

There are WAY TOO MANY reports that the volume of ice on Antarctica, and even on greenland is not decreasing, but redistributing. You know this.

Sure, glaciers move toward the sea, but the volume of ice building in the center is reported by many studies to be outpacing the ice dissappearing on the shores.[/QUOTE]

That is not the case. The studies that talk about increasing ice do not measure the part that flows toward the sea. They are able to measure only the altitude of the top of the snow that falls on the central high point. Show me a study that shows that the total amount of ice is increasing. Based on the most recent measurements the total has decreased slightly according to this literature review:http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/a … /5818/1529

After a century of polar exploration, the past decade of satellite measurements has painted an altogether new picture of how Earth's ice sheets are changing. As global temperatures have risen, so have rates of snowfall, ice melting, and glacier flow. Although the balance between these opposing processes has varied considerably on a regional scale, data show that Antarctica and Greenland are each losing mass overall. Our best estimate of their combined imbalance is about 125 gigatons per year of ice, enough to raise sea level by 0.35 millimeters per year. This is only a modest contribution to the present rate of sea-level rise of 3.0 millimeters per year. However, much of the loss from Antarctica and Greenland is the result of the flow of ice to the ocean from ice streams and glaciers, which has accelerated over the past decade. In both continents, there are suspected triggers for the accelerated ice discharge—surface and ocean warming, respectively—and, over the course of the 21st century, these processes could rapidly counteract the snowfall gains predicted by present coupled climate models.

2007 actually set a record for sea ice in Anarctica![/QUOTE]"The Southern Hemisphere sea ice area narrowly surpassed the previous historic maximum of 16.03 million sq. km to 16.17 million sq. km."The previous high was exceeded by 1%. We have already discussed this. The Antarctic region does not participate in global waming to the same extent as the Arctic because of the difference in pattern of the ocean currents. There is a time lag in GW for this area.This region is therefore not a valid index for world wide temperature change. The previous record was barely exceeded.

# 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA Wednesday. That's 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005's record.

# A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That's nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. It's an amount of water that could cover Washington, D.C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated.

# The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. Another first: the Northwest Passage was open to navigation.

# Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004's total. .."

2007 actually set a record for sea ice in Anarctica![/QUOTE]"The Southern Hemisphere sea ice area narrowly surpassed the previous historic maximum of 16.03 million sq. km to 16.17 million sq. km."The previous high was exceeded by 1%. We have already discussed this. The Antarctic region does not participate in global waming to the same extent as the Arctic because of the difference in pattern of the ocean currents. There is a time lag in GW for this area.This region is therefore not a valid index for world wide temperature change. The previous record was barely exceeded.

# 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA Wednesday. That's 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005's record.

# A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That's nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. It's an amount of water that could cover Washington, D.C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated.

# The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. Another first: the Northwest Passage was open to navigation.

# Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004's total. .."